Well that certainly didn’t take long. Only 5 days after being relieved of his duties by the Boston Bruins, Jim Montgomery finds himself back behind an NHL bench in St. Louis.
The Blues announced Sunday that they had fired head coach Drew Bannister after less than a calendar year, and were replacing him with Montgomery. St. Louis GM Doug Armstrong made the announcement following the team’s 3-1 loss to the Islanders Saturday night to fall to 9-12-1 on the season.
Montgomery, who played 67 games for the Blues as a rookie back in 1993-94, was signed to a 5 year deal to become the 28th head coach in St. Louis history. Evidently Armstrong felt that the roster he had assembled was still a playoff calibre team, and wanted to make a switch before the season began to get away from them.
That’s something that Montgomery has accomplished everywhere he’s been as a coach. The 55 year old sports a .659 winning percentage as a head coach, and each team he’s coached for a full season has qualified for the playoffs throughout his career.
Montgomery previously spent time as an assistant coach on Craig Berube’s staff in St. Louis, making him intimately familiar with the organization as both a player and coach alike.
The move also marks the 23rd coaching change since January 2023 amongst the NHL’s 32 clubs, appearing to usher in a new era of “what have you done for me lately?” amongst the league’s front offices.
St. Louis has the day off on Sunday but will take to the ice Monday at Madison Square Garden in a 7pm ET showdown with the New York Rangers.
Photo: Andrew nyr. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.